Chapter 3 - THE GIRL IN THE RED COAT
Emergency lights flickered on almost immediately.
But the darkness had lasted long enough.
Long enough for everyone in the room to understand that someone had reached into a supposedly secure hospital floor and touched something they should never have been able to touch.
Dante moved first.
He stepped between me and the door.
Bell drew his weapon.
“Stay behind me.”
Dante gave him a cold look.
“You're not protecting her.”
Bell didn't blink.
“Tonight, I am.”
A nurse hurried past the doorway.
Someone shouted farther down the hall.
Then the lights returned.
Dante looked at me.
“Show me the photograph.”
I handed him the phone.
His fingers tightened around it.
The girl in the red coat looked about seventeen.
Dark hair.
Thin face.
A small silver bracelet around her wrist.
She was smiling at the camera.
Dante wasn't.
He looked younger than I had ever seen him.
Almost ordinary.
“Isabella,” I whispered.
Dante nodded.
“My sister.”
“You said she died.”
“I believed she did.”
Bell studied the photograph.
“Who took this?”
Dante didn't answer.
I zoomed in.
Behind Isabella stood a brick building.
Above the door was a faded sign.
St. Agnes Home for Girls.
Bell frowned.
“That place closed years ago.”
Dante looked at me.
“You're sure?”
I nodded.
“My mother volunteered there.”
He stared.
“What?”
“My mother.”
I hadn't thought about the connection before.
My mother had kept almost nothing from her childhood, but there was one old photograph in our apartment of her standing outside St. Agnes.
I suddenly remembered something else.
A red coat.
My mother had once owned one.
She had refused to throw it away.
I had always thought it was sentimental.
Now I wasn't so sure.
Dante sat down.
“Tell me everything.”
I did.
He listened without interrupting.
When I finished, Bell looked at him.
“So your sister disappeared at St. Agnes.”
“Yes.”
“And you thought she died.”
“Yes.”
“And now someone sends Harper a photograph proving she may have survived.”
Dante nodded.
Bell rubbed his jaw.
“That leaves one question.”
“What?”
“Why attack Harper?”
Dante looked at me.
“Because whoever sent that photograph knows she is connected.”
My stomach tightened.
“Connected how?”
Dante didn't answer.
Instead, he asked me something strange.
“Did your mother ever mention the name Moretti?”
I thought about it.
“No.”
“Never?”
“No.”
“Did she know Isabella?”
“I don't know.”
Dante leaned back.
For a moment, he looked exhausted.
Then Bell's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He listened.
“Where?”
A pause.
“Don't touch anything.”
He hung up.
“The locker.”
Dante stood.
Bell shook his head.
“You're staying here.”
“No.”
“You're not a cop.”
“I know.”
“And you're not walking out of this hospital with three broken ribs and a concussion.”
Dante ignored him.
I spoke.
“I’m going.”
Both men looked at me.
“No,” Dante said.
“Yes.”
“You can barely walk.”
“I can walk.”
“You're injured.”
“And this started because someone used me to send you a message.”
Dante went silent.
I looked at him.
“You don't get to protect me by keeping me ignorant.”
Something in his expression softened.
Then he nodded.
“Fine.”
Bell stared at both of us.
“You two are going to give me a heart attack.”
An hour later, we reached the abandoned train station.
The old locker corridor smelled of dust and rain.
Dante stopped in front of locker 214.
His hand hovered over the lock.
“You okay?” I asked.
“No.”
It was the most honest answer I'd heard from him.
He inserted the brass key.
Click.
The locker opened.
Inside was a metal box.
No money.
No weapons.
No documents.
Just three things.
A photograph.
A silver bracelet.
And a child's drawing.
I stared at the drawing.
Two stick figures stood beneath a crooked red sun.
One was labeled Dante.
The other said Bella.
At the bottom, in childish handwriting, were the words:
WE WILL FIND MOM.
Dante picked up the photograph.
His hand shook.
It showed Isabella standing beside a woman.
The woman wore the same silver bracelet.
I looked at the face.
Then froze.
I knew her.
Not personally.
From somewhere.
Dante saw my expression.
“Who is she?”
I couldn't speak.
Bell stepped closer.
“Harper?”
I pointed at the photograph.
“That’s my mother.”
Dante went completely still.
The photograph slipped from his hand.
“No.”
I picked it up.
“My mother is the woman beside Isabella.”
Dante stared at me.
Bell looked between us.
Then he noticed something on the back of the photograph.
A date.
And beneath it, a handwritten sentence.
Dante turned it over.
His face drained of color.
I read the words aloud.
If anything happens to me, protect Claire. She is Isabella's daughter.
Dante looked at me.
Neither of us spoke.
Then he whispered:
“Your name isn't Claire.”
I frowned.
“What?”
He pointed to the back.
The handwriting continued beneath the first line.
Claire is the name they gave her. Her real name is Isabella Moretti.
My entire body went cold.
“No.”
Dante looked at me with something between horror and grief.
“Harper…”
“No.”
The photograph shook in my hand.
“My mother named me Harper.”
Dante stared at the bracelet.
Then at me.
And said the words that changed everything.
“Your mother wasn't Isabella.”
I stared.
“She was protecting Isabella's daughter.”
Bell stepped forward.
“Then where is Isabella?”
Dante looked toward the dark station entrance.
“I think we've been asking the wrong question.”
A sound echoed from the far end of the corridor.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Then a woman's voice whispered through the darkness.
“Dante?”
He froze.
May you like
The voice came again.
“You took twenty-two years to find me.”
